„We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.“

— Winston S. Churchill

Last update Feb. 12, 2022.

Winston S. Churchill602

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874 - 1965

Related quotes

„We are living in a world which seems to be founded on the refusal to reflect.“

— Gabriel Marcel French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist 1889 - 1973

Source: Man Against Mass Society (1952), p. 132

World

„.. we didn't have the intention at all of founding a new style... What we wanted, was a refusal of the outmoded, overly-cultivated art practices.“

— Karl Schmidt-Rottluff German artist 1884 - 1976

as quoted in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner und Die 'Brücke: Selbstbildnisse, Künstlerbildnisse, Jutta Hülsewig-Johnen & Egging Björn; Kerber, Bielefeld 2005, p. 174; as quoted by Louise Albiez https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272168564Claire (incl. translation), Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus; submitted to the Division of Humanities New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida, May, 2013 p. 9

Art

„While we might always have enjoyed self-expression, we have perhaps at times lacked a little bit of self-belief.“

— Alex Salmond Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland 1954

Broadcasting Speech (August 8, 2007)

Time

„I want to make all Europe and America know it – I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require – the restoration of our domestic parliament…“

— Daniel O'Connell Irish political leader 1775 - 1847

Speech given at a ‘monster’ meeting held at Drogheda, June, 1843.

Justice, Feeling

„When we view nature stripped to essentials, so to speak, in this Unification Table, what we see is… a five bit register. …It is in just this form that data is stored and manipulated within a digital computer. …Every particle, then, can be specified by a five-bit word and stored in a five-bit register. It's eerie that even the odd restriction on how many minus signs are allowed is reminiscent of a trick used in computers, to detect errors in transmission. You see, if allowed words must have an odd number of minus signs, any single error in transmission of a word can be detected. …our world might be an intricate program working itself out on a gigantic computing machine.“

— Frank Wilczek physicist 1951

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

World, Error, Nature

„Every man had to die. He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying.“

— Brandon Sanderson American fantasy writer 1975

Source: Shadows of Self

„What is not there in English which can be found in Tamil Language?”“

— Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Tamil politician and social reformer 1879 - 1973

Source: quoted in Book written by M. Venkatesan entitled “EV Ramasamy Naickarin Marupakkam” also https://myvoice.opindia.com/2019/02/rise-of-ev-ramasamy-naicker-and-the-fall-of-tamil-nadu/

„I have always found that the less we speak of our intentions, the more chance there is of our realizing them.“

— John Ruskin English writer and art critic 1819 - 1900

Preface to the first edition, 1865
The Ethics of the Dust (1875)

Chance

„We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot possibly solve it aright.“

— Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life

Problem

„Out of the maelstrom of happenings we abstract certain bits to attend to. We snapshot these bits by naming them. Then we begin responding to the names as if they are the bits that we have named, thus obscuring the effects of change.“

— Neil Postman American writer and academic 1931 - 2003

Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: A fifth kind of semantic awareness has to do with what might be called the "photographic" effects of language. We live in a universe of constant process. Everything is changing in the physical world around us. We ourselves, physically at least, are always changing. Out of the maelstrom of happenings we abstract certain bits to attend to. We snapshot these bits by naming them. Then we begin responding to the names as if they are the bits that we have named, thus obscuring the effects of change. The names we use tend to "fix" that which is named, particularly if the names also carry emotional connotations... There are some semanticists who have suggested that such phrases as "national defense" and "national sovereignty" have been... maintained beyond the date for which they were prescribed. What might have been politically therapeutic at one time may prove politically fatal at another.

Change

„The national character of the three kingdoms was strongly marked in my army. I found the English regiments always in the best humour when we were well supplied with beef; the Irish when we were in the wine countries, and the Scotch when the dollars for pay came up. This looks like an epigram, but I assure you it was a fact, and quite perceptible; but we managed to reconcile all their tempers, and I will venture to say that in our later campaigns, and especially when we crossed the Pyrenees, there never was an army in the world in better spirits, better order, or better discipline. We had mended in discipline every campaign, until at last (smiling) I hope we were pretty near perfect.“

— Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington British soldier and statesman 1769 - 1852

Remarks to John Wilson Croker (20 October 1825), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. I (1884), p. 353

Perfection, Country, World, Smile